Tagliatelle con il ragu'

I am talking about ragu' alla bolognese. This ragu' is not meant to be cooked with spaghetti!

This is something so obvious to me. Any sauce will have a better kind of pasta to go with...the roughness of egg pasta and tagliatelle is the perfect match for this sauce.

This is how I make it.

First of all I use a very large saute' pan for starting the sauce, in order to sweat and brown all the ingredients properly.

I prep a good quantity of onions, carrots and celery. For about 800 g of meat I use 2 medium onions, some amount of carrots and half of the celery, everything in macedoine size (.5 cm).
I start sweating the onion with evoo and a knot of butter, as soon as it soften, I add the celery, and after a couple minutes the carrots. I like to add a little bit of minced pancetta. Here, it really makes a difference to use some chicken liver in the ragu'. Clean a couple livers from tough parts and chop with a chef knife. Since the liver has the tendency to tie up to other ingredients, push the vegetables on the side and add the liver in the center of the pan. As soon as it changes color, make sure to break it with the wooden spoon, mix with the other ingredients.
Again I push the vegetables on the sides and start browning the meat in the center. I keep my heat on high, make sure I have enough fat to brown the meat. I like a mix of pork and ground beef. If the pan is large enough the meat will not release its own juice. As soon as I see it browning I break with the spoon any lumps and mix it with the other ingredients. I usually start with half of the meat, brown, mix with the vegetagles, put at at sides and keep going with the rest of it.















At this poing I add a little bit of tomato paste, like a couple tablespoons and brown. This is something my chef instructor at the FCI used to do and I kept the habit: he tought that browing the tomato paste will avoid the metallic taste that often this industrial tomato paste has. Then I deglaze with red wine (warm), making sure to scrape all the "sucs" from the bottom of the pan. I would add something like 400 ml of hot whole milk, a little at a time, more or less dipends if I feel I need more. When it looks nice and creamy, I pour the sauce in a taller pot, I add a big can of peeled tomatoes (whick I usually crush by hand), if I feel I need the sauce to be a little more runny I add some hot water. I add some coarse salt and a bay leaf. I bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 2 to 3 hours

















For tagliatelle.

Usually there is the rule of 100 g flour to one egg. But I find so much difference in the protein levels of flour that i usually beat the eggs on the side and start adding to the flour the 90% of it. Then I usually wet my hands in the remaining eggs while I am kneaking the dough. Tagliatelle dough, in particular, should feel pretty stiff.
I wrap the dough in plastic paper and let rest for half an hour. The most of the times I use the imperia machine to roll my dough. If I find the dough too humid, I will dust it with rice starch or any other starch rather than flour. Let rest the sheet of pasta until it doesn't feel any more humid but not dry to the point it will crumble. It is better to let it rest on a pasta board. Cut in tagliatelle leave to dry a little bit before forming the nests

Spaghetti con le cozze alla tarantina

 












Taranto is my town. It is a seaport on the Ionian Sea. It a very ancient city dating back to the 8th century B.C.
The city has been famous since Roman times for the miticulture, mussels farming but also oyster farming. The particular taste of the mussels in Taranto is due to the farming in the Mar Piccolo, which, in fact, represents a bay. Spring water infiltrations in the sea produce a sweet tasting, delicate mussels. They are small size but very full, meat is tender, not rubbery. Sometimes I don't understand why people is so scared of eating this little gem. It is true that you can get diseases from mussels but so you could for vegetables that have been irrigated with unclean water. Mussels have strong anticorps and they usually are let to rest in deputation tanks (vasche di stabulazione) for a variable time, which make pretty safe their consumption. Maybe don't be extreme like tarantini (people from taranto), where mussels are eaten raw but don't worry too much.
In my town, at the fishmonger, you will find mussels already open (raw) and kept in their liquor. That's the right way to cook spaghetti con le cozze. If you start with raw mussels rather than cooked one the final taste will improve a lot.
If you don't feel comfortable at opening each mussels with the knife, a good way that I alrealy tasted is steam no more than 10 mussels at the time. As soon as they open slightly take them out, they need to open barely to slide the tip of the knife in. They will be still raw. If a mussel doesn't open, it doesn't necessarely mean that the mussel is bad, on the contrary we believe that if it is more resistent at opening it is in a strong and in very good shape. Rather throw away mussels that are already open. Abroad they usually come very clean, in Taranto you have to do the hard job and clean them yourself. Make sure to scrub any foreing object from the shell, also what might look like a rock for you, use a knife to scape it off. And if there is the byssus attached you need to pull it toward you (keeping the pointed side of the mussel facing you). If I knew how to load a video on this blog I'd show how to open a mussel by hand. Don't soak mussels, is not necessary. I dump them in the sink, take three at a time, I vigorously rub them between my hands under the running cold water, by doing that apart from cleaning you'll manage to find already opened mussels. If a mussel is no good, be sure that you'll find out, they smell really nasty. Once I open and collect all the mussels, I pour their water into a separate bowl and filter it with a towel and I rinse very gently the mussels under water.

For spaghetti alle cozze is not complicated. Extra virgin olive oil in a large pan with garlic slivers (one clove is enough for our taste) and fresh hot pepper, when it's hot add the mussels with a little with of their filtered water. Meanwhile the spaghetti are already cooking. Drain the spaghetti really al dente in the pan with mussels and finish cooking adding more mussels water and pasta cooking water if necessary. Sprinkle chopped parsley and a lot of black pepper.